There will be laughs galore at Clanabogan Hall this weekend with the staging of the hilarious comedy No Hope Here on Sunday night.
The play, which is being staged by Knocks Drama Group from Lisnaskea, has been described as one of the funniest performance you're likely to witness this year.
The action takes place in the living room of a pre-war terrace house in Belfast in the early 80s. The householder, Rab Devlin, has personally refurbished the house with the aid of the Housing Executive home improvement grant in between signing-on the dole. Building work is complete and final paintwork is nearing an end.
This is the latest in a series of such houses to be occupied by the Devlins in the previous 15 years. Prior to this, all their homes had been in Nationalist areas of Belfast but they now live in what had once been a totally Loyalist neighbourhood. Due to population migration arising from the Troubles their new locality has gradually become integrated although still mainly Loyalist.
Rab Devlin is one of the long term unemployed and a competent handyman. He is forever dressed in working clothes and usually found attending to some odd job urged along by his wife's sharp tongue. Maggie Devlin is a warm woman striving for a better lifestyle and social image which leads her to nag Rab on to greater efforts fuelled mainly by her sister who lives in the same street.
Doreen Nelson, Maggie's sister, is unapologetically a social climber. Liam Nelson, her husband, is a childhood friend of Rab. With the benefit of further education, he has aspired to a clerical post in Stormont Civil Service. He has forgotten his working class upbringing and reflects Doreen's snobbery.
Sam (Deadly Knightshades) Knight is a gladiator. Slow-witted, he is a product of his political environment and relishes the power and importance his physique and membership of the local paramilitaries can command. Pius O'Connor is another product of Northern Ireland's political turmoil. Denied conventional goals, his greatest aspiration is to fight for the cause.
Expect a few shocks and surprises as well as plenty of belly-laughs when reality and fantasy collide.
* No Hope Here is staged in Clanabogan Hall on Sunday, April 1 at 8pm.
